Role of ULBs paramount in biodiversity conservation in cities

Urban biodiversity refers to the variety and richness of plants and animals available in an urban ecosystem. Urban biodiversity supports multiple regulating, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services. Intense urbanization is a major driver of biodiversity and related environmental change. Therefore, developing biodiversity-friendly cities is thus inextricably linked to the sustainable urban development and human
well-being.
Sustainability illustrates the role of urban environments as pressures on biodiversity, and envisions pathways towards developing more diverse urban ecosystems that are accepted and supported by local people. Contributions reveal promising opportunities for conserving biodiversity within many urban landscapes. The insights from this conference can support urban conservation policies and their implementation in the development of sustainable cities.
As the world’s population and urbanization increasingly inhabits cities, urbanized areas have become the most rapidly expanding habitat type worldwide. Cities currently represent about 3% of the world’s land usage, but their effects on climate, resources, pollution, and biodiversity extend far beyond their municipal borders. It is clear that urbanization greatly alters plant and animal species diversity and abundance in both negative and positive directions. Relative to other ecosystems, most think of urban ecosystems as tightly controlled, highly manipulated, land intensely managed by individuals, institutions, and governments cities, urbanization and sub-urbanization usually reduce both species richness and evenness for most biotic communities. Because the urban footprint extends far beyond municipal boundaries, urbanization may also reduce native species diversity at regional and global scales. About 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68 per cent by 2050. Within cities, biological communities are usually radically altered in terms of species composition, abundances, richness (number of species and a component of diversity), and evenness (how individuals are distributed among species and another component of diversity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services states that “Building sustainable cities that address critical needs while conserving nature, restoring biodiversity, maintaining and enhancing ecosystem services” as an important aspect for achieving sustainability. The quality as well as the quantity of urban nature matters to people and contributes to their well-being. Enhancing biodiversity within urban settings is one important pathway to creating more liveable cities. Urban nature generates and supports a broad array of regulating, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services and to promote physical and mental health and maintains people’s connection to nature. The Sustainable Development Goals call for the loss of biodiversity to be halted, and the extinction of threatened species prevented. Integrating this thinking into the built environment has been identified as a key pathway to achieve these outcomes.
In 1992, the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, famous for its climate change convention, promulgated another convention the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for the conservation, sustainable use and fair and equitable sharing of benefits of biological diversity. India, is one of the signatories to the convention, enacted the Biological Diversity Act in 2002, and formed a three-tier institutional structure for its implementation Biodiversity Authority, State Biodiversity Boards and finally, the Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at the local body level. As per the BD Act, BMCs have to document biodiversity in their jurisdiction, conserve it, and ensure its sustainable use. The idea is for the local community to be involved in managing its own natural resources. As soon as a BMC is formed, the first task is the preparation of a People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR), which records local body level biodiversity and traditional knowledge, acts as a legal document, which confirms the sovereign power of the BMC over the resources documented in the PBR and can be used as an impact assessment tool for developmental activities. BMC is responsible for eco-restoration of local biodiversity, and protection of heritage trees, sacred groves, traditional varieties/breeds of economically important plants and animals, etc. In fact, the mere formation of BMCs has been little safeguard for biodiversity in any region. Looking back, we have to prepare perfect plan to sensitize and to make more effective urban local body level BMCs for environmental preservation and urban biodiversity conservation improve city’s terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity.
As we are so engrossed in development in urban areas, which is also much needed for the cities with growing urban population but we should have also thought about sustainable development, Conservation of biodiversity is a multi-sectoral endeavour and involves multiple stakeholder participation at various tiers of governance at urban level. Therefore, the mainstreaming biodiversity across sectors at local body level becomes very relevant. The role of urban local body administrators is very important to make the effective governance of BMCs at local body level by involving the various biodiversity related departments, institutions, stakeholders and non-Government organisations (NGOs).
There is need to focus the role of urban environments for species, communities, or ecosystems of conservation concern in relation to urbanization, urban land uses, management, and other types of human interference. Apart from this, the mechanism is to be finalised to halt urban biodiversity loss or underpin the survival of species of conservation concern in urban environments. The city planner has to consider and integrate the component of biodiversity conservation into sustainable urban development, particularly into urban planning, environmental education and the urban green infrastructure, and into the development, management, or restoration of urban ecosystems.
The intersection of biodiversity, urban environments and people is a fascinating and important field of research. It is also a promising arena for urban policies aiming at reconciling with biodiversity in urban regions for the sake of both urban residents urbanisation processes and urban nature. The outcome at this national level urban summit will support policies based on urban biodiversity conservation along with their implementation to achieve the objectives of the Biological Diversity Act, 2001 and Madhya Pradesh State Biodiversity Rules, 2004.